Author: Vladislav B. Date: Winter-Spring From: Serbian Studies Vol. Publisher: Slavica Publishers, Inc. Document Type: Article. Length: 9, words. Lexile Measure: L. Translate Article. Set Interface Language. Decrease font size. A serious country, with a great history and tradition, has managed to commit international suicide and slide into isolation.
And often I ask myself how a country that has so much in common with Greece has managed to fall into such desperate straits. We both believe that we are nations that are both alone and unique and that the rest of the planet owes us much.
We both believe very strongly that we are such unique people that everyone else wants to eliminate us lest we spoil things for them. We have a strong tendency to see ourselves as victims, as prey in a centuries-old hunt in which the hunters are Turks, English, Americans and so on. Serbia lost a war when its then strongman decided to «cleanse» Kosovo and take on the whole of the international community. He miscalculated with regard to the reactions of the great powers; he went to war and he lost.
Whether or not this was moral or just is not the point — that is what happened. But the problem is no one cares. The Byzantines were clearly on the defensive. Situated at the crossroads of the main Balkan routes connecting the surrounding Serbian lands of Raska, Bosnia, Zeta and the Shkoder littoral with Macedonia and the Pomoravlje region, Kosovo now became the cultural and administrative centre of the Nemanjic state following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in From the twelfth century Catholicism had begun to penetrate through the coastal areas to the interior of the Albanian-inhabited territories of the north-east, but since state and religion were synonymous, the Nemanjas set about imposing the Orthodox faith on their subject peoples.
A large number of Catholic churches and monasteries were enlarged and converted into Serbian ones. In the course of time the Orthodox church divided into several national churches corresponding to the states or peoples of the region. Thus the Serbian Orthodox Church acquired an independent identity in the thirteenth century, becoming closely tied to the power of the state and a strong supporter of state policies.
Throughout the twelfth century, Serbia experienced a growth in economic development. Progress in agriculture was based on rich soils left by former lakes located in fertile basins as in Kosovo upper Ibar river , Metohija upper Drin river and Tetovo upper Vardar river. Progress in mining also occurred based on deposits of gold, silver, copper and tin.
After the fall of Constantinople in the centre of the Nemanjic state moved to the comparatively rich and densely populated regions of Kosovo and Metohija. Here were established the Nemanjas' cultural and administrative centres which required the seat of the Serbian Orthodox church also to move to Pec on acquiring autocephalous status in The successors of the first archbishop, Saint Sava, built several additional chapels around the Church of the Holy Apostle, laying the ground for what was to become the Pec patriarchy.
Through their various theoretical writings and liturgies, these monastic communities helped to foster and strengthen not only the beliefs of the Orthodox Church but also the spiritual form of the Serbian nation.
King Milutin left behind the largest number of endowments in Kosovo, one of the greatest of which is Gracanica monastery built in near Pristina. In Kosovo, especially in its eastern part, most Albanians were gradually assimilated into the Eastern Orthodox faith by numerous methods, including the baptism of infants with Serbian names and the conducting of all religious ceremonies such as marriages in the Serbian language.
In Montenegro entire tribes such as the Kuc, Bjellopavliq, Palabardha, Piprraj and Vasovic were assimilated; those who resisted assimilation retreated into the hills of what is now northern Albania. It is probable that during the twelfth century the definite differentiation occurred between the Gheg linguistic group north of the Shkumbi river and the Tosk group to the south of it.
At the same time Roman Catholicism, coming from Dalmatia, spread throughout northern Albania, while the south remained under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church. The formal adoption of Catholicism, besides drawing a clear line of demarcation between Albanians and Serbs, also had a further important effect: it incorporated the resistance of the Albanians into the powerful anti-Serb coalition of the Catholic monarchs of Europe that the Papacy attempted to construct especially at the start of the fourteenth century.
There is no doubt that the Serbs' breach with the French Angevins, hitherto their allies, played a decisive role in the creation of this front. Common interests gave rise to major campaigns against the Serbs, such as the Crusades of and , when the alliance of the Papacy, Naples and Hungary was eagerly joined by Albanian and Croat nobles. The Albanians were not to create any structure resembling a state till the fifteenth century.
However, organised in tribes under their own chieftains, they dominated the mountains of most of what is today known as Albania. Virtually the whole territory of southern Kosovo during the Middle Ages became the property of the big monasteries. The information contained in the founding charters of these monasteries show that in the first half of the fourteenth century the population gradually moved from the mountains to the west and north of Kosovo down into the fertile valleys.
Not far from Pec stands the enormous and beautiful church of Decani, built in for Stefan Uros III; its wealth of decoration includes almost 10, painted figures and twenty biblical cycles representing the largest surviving collection of icons created within the Byzantine sphere of influence.
Each Serbian ruler built at least one monastery. The Decani charter lists in detail households and chartered villages. The Decani estate was an area of sweeping size which included parts of what is today northeastern Albania. It is these self-sufficient monastic complexes that are cited as proof of the ethnic and homogeneous settlement of Kosovo by Serbs.
The civil wars in Byzantium in the mid-fourteenth century had destabilised the European provinces of the Empire, thus opening the way for the Balkan conquests of the most powerful of all the Serbian kings, Stefan Dusan , an undertaking easily accomplished with the aid of the local nobility. The conquest by the Serbs of the Albanian-speaking lands within the area formed by Antivar Bar , Prizren, Ohrid and Vlora was mainly accomplished in when Dusan launched a great invasion of the territory now known as Albania.
With the proclamation of the empire, the patriarchal throne was permanently established at the Pec monastery in Serbia's rulers subsequently dotted the fertile land lying between Pec, Prizren, Mitrovica and Pristina with churches and monasteries, and the whole region eventually acquired the Serb name Metohija from the Greek metoh , meaning an estate owned by the Church.
Thus the Metohija region became the spiritual nucleus of the Serbian nation. There followed a policy of enforced conversion of both Catholic and Orthodox Albanians to the Serbian national church -- conversion to the Serbian church being a priority of Serbian state policy, as can be shown by the Code of Stefan Dusan.
This Code -- a form of constitution of the mediaeval Serbian kingdom -- contained so-called 'anti-heresy clauses' demanding that all subjects of the Serbian kingdom and members of foreign communities be baptised into the Serbian church. The Serbian bishopric of Pec was then proclaimed a patriarchate, thus establishing the Serbian Church's independence from Constantinople. Stefan Dusan made a great effort to encourage commerce and industry, which was skilfully achieved by the importation of foreigners as well as by diplomacy and treaties.
Saxons, Ragusans from Dubrovnik , Venetians, Greeks and Albanians all worked in his rich mines such as Novo Brdo, or garrisoned his fortresses. Never before or since has Serbian power or territory been so great. Today Serbian patriots look back to the age of Dusan as the most glorious in their history and regard him as a hero. His name was to become synonymous with the aspirations of the Serbian nation. Under the Nemanjas, protected highways united Prizren with the Danube and the Adriatic.
There was constant communication between Prizren, Kotor, Ragusa and even Venice. The Serbian rulers facilitated the passage of merchants through their lands.
For two centuries Prizren was the seat of the Serbian sovereign, and was one of Serbia's chief trade centres where many Serbian merchants as well as traders from the coast resided, including Dubrovnik's consul for all of Serbia. Prizren naturally became Dusan's capital, and in its vicinity he built between and a church dedicated to the Holy Archangels as his final resting place, the only structure he had an opportunity to build as donor.
No expense was spared on the interior, which was resplendent in marble, gold leaf, silver stars and mosaics. Unfortunately for the Serbs, Stefan Dusan never learned to hold his great empire together. He divided his territorial conquests into provinces, each under the control of a powerful chieftain.
The Empire, comprising small semi-independent states under such powerful families as the Dukagjin, Balsha, Thopia and Kastrati, lacked uniformity and cohesion, thus gradually crumbled, especially after it was attacked by the Ottomans, an enemy completely united under the authority of a single leader.
In the years after Prizren declined to some extent, since it had become part of a smaller principality and was separated from the principal mines, which no longer lay under the same ruler as the town.
After merchant colonies at individual mines, like Novo Brdo, grew in size and importance, and much of the trade between the mining centres and the coast was carried on directly rather than being routed through Prizren. During the late fourteenth century, disunity in the Balkans resulting from internal division and domestic squabbles was a prelude to the real danger that was materialising from the south-east. A new power now made its appearance as a factor in the history of Europe.
The Ottoman Turks, an Asiatic people, had gradually worn away the weakened Byzantine Empire and in invaded the peninsula from Asia Minor.
They began their inexorable trail of conquest by moving up through the Maritsa valley and capturing Macedonia in Lacking unity the various Balkan national rulers failed to recognize the problem and thus to stem the tide. The imminence and extent of the Ottoman threat had not been accurately estimated by either the Byzantines or the Balkan rulers, whose main efforts were absorbed in wars among themselves. By the Serbian state was very different from the empire Dusan had left at the time of his death.
Thessaly, Epirus and Albania had seceded entirely, and internal feuds between the various autonomous Slavic and Albanian lords had allowed the Ottomans, throughout the s, to penetrate deep into Thrace with little opposition. They were unable to form a sufficiently strong and united coalition to fight the Ottomans when the latter confronted them on 26 September at the Battle of Marica, near Crnomen, where the Ottomans scored their greatest success up to that time.
This battle, which heralded the decisive Ottoman invasion of Serbian-controlled lands, was far more significant in opening up the Balkans to the Turks and in weakening Serbian resistance than the later and more famous Battle of Kosovo Due partly to their unpreparedness, the Serbian forces were annihilated and in consequence the rest of Serbia disintegrated.
Parts of it were grabbed by the still feuding warlords who, distrusting each other, struggled to fill the vacuums created by the collapse of central power. The Battle of Marica made the disintegration of the rest of Serbia easier; the central government, such as it was, lost the bulk of its forces in the battle, while the nobles who had not fought retained their forces unimpared.
In the ensuing peace treaty the Serbs agreed to pay the Ottomans an annual tribute and provide 1, mercenaries for the Ottoman army. At last, and too late, the Balkan states realised that they had to unite against the Ottoman threat. The Bosnian king Tvrtko sent a detachment of soldiers to aid the Serbs, and in the fastness of Montenegro a combined force of Albanians and Serbs utterly defeated the Ottoman army.
He dashed back to Europe and assembled an enormous army to march against the Serbs. This was the background to the battle destined to decide the fate of the Balkans.
On the eve of the battle, the northern parts of Kosovo were in the possession of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic and parts of Metohija belonged to his brother-in-law Vuk Brankovic. The Turks first demanded that Lazar accept Ottoman suzerainty and pay tribute. He refused and, realising that he would be faced with an invasion, sought aid from his neighbours Tvrtko and Vuk Brankovic.
Tvrtko sent a large contingent under the command of Vlatko Vukovic, the commander who had defeated the Turkish force at Bileca. Vuk Brankovic came himself, leading his own men. Thus the Serbian army was composed of three contingents under these three leaders, none of whom was then a Turkish vassal. It is said that Vuk accepted the offer agreeing to desert with his troops in the course of the coming battle, and he has accordingly been cast as a traitor in Serbian folk history. The Ottoman chroniclers, however, fail to mention these specific facts.
Nevertheless, morale was certainly low in the Serbian camp, which led not only some Serbian but also several Bulgarian princes to offer their services to the Sultan. But in spite of this a large coalition army led by Serbian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Bosnian and Albanian nobles gathered on the wide plain of Kosovo to confront the Ottoman army.
Albanian princes were at that time close allies of the Serbs, the result of their shared desire to oppose the Ottomans.
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